Culpable Carelessness: Recklessness and Negligence in the Criminal Law

Cambridge University Press has published Culpable Carelessness: Recklessness and Negligence in the Criminal Law by Dr Findlay Stark.

The question of when a person is culpable for taking an unjustified risk of harm has long been controversial in Anglo-American criminal law doctrine and theory. This survey of the approaches adopted in England and Wales, Canada, Australia, the United States, New Zealand and Scotland argues that they are converging, to differing extents, around a 'Standard Account' of culpable unjustified risk-taking.

This Standard Account distinguishes between awareness-based culpability (recklessness) and inadvertence-based culpability (negligence) for unjustified risk-taking. With reference to criminal law theory and philosophical literature, the author argues that, when explained appropriately, the Standard Account is defensible and practical. Defending the Standard Account involves analysing in depth a number of controversial matters, including the meaning of advertence/awareness, the role of attitudes such as indifference in culpable risk-taking, and the question of whether negligence should be used in the criminal law.

• Provides the first comparative study of culpable risk-taking in Anglo-American criminal law
• Examines unjustified risk-taking from a theoretical perspective
• Draws extensively on hitherto under-used philosophical materials to advance the theoretical debate on culpable unjustified risk-taking

For more information about this book, please refer to the CUP website. For information about other publications by Dr Stark, see his Faculty Profile.